Northwest Missouri State University students have the chance to compete against other area college students while participating in a real-world marketing project with a start-up company founded by Northwest alumni.

Kansas City-based JimmyGood Technology is administering the contest, Market U 2012, for students at Northwest and other Kansas City area colleges and universities.

The contest opens March 1, and participants have until April 10 to prepare a plan. Three judges will select three finalists to present their plans to the JimmyGood Technology team. One winner will be selected from each school as well as an overall winner. Winners will be announced in early April.

The winning team will win an iPad and internship opportunities with JimmyGood Technology in addition to a chance to have their work showcased in national media markets.

For the contest, participants will be tasked with promoting Mindpush, a new app for iPhone and Android operating systems. MindPush is the only anonymous, vicinity-based sharing app available today and does not utilize profiles, pictures or “friending.” It allows users to post messages that others in their vicinity can view, all in real-time and without identifying themselves.

While the contest is designed to help JimmyGood with its promotion of the new app, the business also wants to connect with the next-generation of technology, digital and marketing talent.

Northwest graduates Brian Smith and Dusty Laun, founded the company in 2007. By offering the contest to Northwest students, Smith and Laun said they hope their fellow Bearcats will take advantage of an opportunity to show others that Northwest students have what it takes to succeed in the business world.

“It's where we came from and we're extremely proud of the University and what it has afforded us,” Smith said. “Secondly, we continue to be impressed with the talent that Northwest attracts, evolves and graduates. Dusty and I both had early opportunities to engage in internships and real-world work. We've certainly recognized the value in our education, but what we've found most important is ‘real-life’ experiences. We are excited by the opportunity to engage Northwest students in this capacity and confident we'll be impressed with the outcome.”

After completing their undergraduate degrees at Northwest and launching successful careers at business software company CA Technologies, Smith and Laun took their entrepreneurial aspirations to a new level and formed JimmyGood.

In addition to MindPush, JimmyGood developed CiiAll (pronounced “See All”), a service that empowers users with the ability to access text messages, exact GPS locations, browser history, call details and other information from their cell phones via the internet. CiiAll recently was added to Sprint Zone, a free application pre-loaded on Sprint phones.

“Northwest set the foundation for the opportunities that Dusty and I have been fortunate to have thus far and continue to manifest,” Smith said. “Northwest offered several classes that helped articulate and emphasize the importance of real-world thinking, problem-solving and experience. Northwest has long been a leader in technology and the University's commitment to technology was certainly an inspiration for us as well as the multitude of others coming from Northwest.”